Selective voltammetric and flow-injection determination of guanine and adenine on a glassy carbon electrode modified by a ruthenium hexachloroplatinate film

An inorganic film of ruthenium hexachloroplatinate (RuPtCl6), deposited on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode, exhibits electrocatalytic activity in the oxidation of purine bases, such as adenine and guanine. Appropriate working conditions are found for fabricating a polymer film on the surface of glassy carbon and for recording the maximum electrocatalytic effect for the modified electrode. A method is developed for the selective voltammetric determination of guanine and adenine in their simultaneous presence on an electrode modified by a RuPtCl6 film. A procedure is proposed for the amperometric detection of purine bases with this modified electrode under the conditions of flow-injection analysis. The dependence of the analytical signal on the concentration of guanine and adenine is linear up to 5 x 10(-6) and 5 x 10(-7) M in the stationary mode and to 5 x 10(-7) and 5 x 10(-8) M under flow conditions, respectively. The proposed method was tested in the analysis of calf thymus DNA for the concentrations of guanine and adenine.